The Orc Warrior's Secret Baby

Secret Babies of Prothekan Orc Warriors, Book 2

De: Celeste King

Narrado por: Midnite Michael, Mia Madison

I was lucky to find my soulmate. And cursed to have lost him so soon after . . .

I thought Tarfu was my happy ending. Until he went missing in battle. At first I waited patiently. Then anxiously. Then finally, hopelessly.

Three years have passed. Orc males in his clan begin to circle me. Looking to claim me.

But if I know my mate, Tarfu will never stop till he comes back to me. He will always be searching for me. Always loving me.

And when he comes through my door again, my face will break out in joy. And I'll present him a gift for finally making it back to us.

Our son.

Contains mature themes.

©2022 Celeste King (P)2025 Tantor Media

Not-so-secret Orc baby!

The following ratings are out of 5:
Romance: 💚💜💙❤️
Story/Plot: 📕📗📘📙
Heat/Steam: 🔥🔥🔥
Chemistry: 🧪🧪🧪🧪
World building: 🌏🌍🌎🌏
Character development: 😒🤩😀😍
Narrator(s): 🎙🎙🎙🎙
Narration type: Dual Narration

The heroine: Katherine - she is a human female who mated an Orc Warrior named Tarfu who has been missing and presumed dead for three years. During that time, Katherine had their baby boy and had been deeply grieving her lost love. Though her friends and other Orc’s in the village have been pushing her to move on from Tarfu and start dating again. She didn’t want to but finally succumbed to the pressure and agreed to go out on a date with someone new.

The Hero: Tarfu - he is an Orc who mated and married a human female. He was over the moon when he found out that she was pregnant with his child. Though within a week of finding out, he had to leave the village to check out a new enemy clan that was camping out on their lands. He and his platoon were expected to return within a few weeks. Though while on the mission, they are ambushed.

The Story: Tarfu’s battalion was overconfident, as they are attacked by the other clan of Orc’s. Being an established clan, they have plenty of warrior’s and a huge cache of weapons. But this other clan had so many more warriors, plus more and better weapons. Tarfu finds himself fighting on the front lines when his superiors call for a retreat. He can’t turn his back on the enemy at this point, and so he fights on while the others in his clan are able to retreat. He ends up surrounded by his enemies and beaten badly, resulting in many broken bones, then taken captive. He is imprisoned by the other clan for three years.

After two weeks of searching, the Orc’s tell Katherine that they have to assume he is dead. She didn’t believe them, and didn’t know how to go on without Tarfu, though after so much time had passed, she acknowledged that he wouldn’t be coming home. Some of the other people in the village spread rumors of Katherine being a loose woman since she hadn’t been visibly pregnant before Tarfu disappeared. Though as much as the other women tried to get her to date and be happy, she couldn’t bring herself to do it for a long time.

I wasn’t quite sure why this was called The Orc Warrior’s Secret Baby, since Tarfu knew about the baby from the time Katherine did. But I did like the premise of the story, with Tarfu having been captured and thought to be killed by enemies. Though despite the name, the story was good. Especially because Tarfu didn’t believe that Katherine would date or mate with another Orc. He knew how much she loved him and thought that she would rather be alone with his memory than with someone else. But when he finally escapes and returns home, he finds her out on a date.

The setup hits a whole storm of emotional pressure points—grief, loyalty, betrayal (or the fear of it), and the ache of missed time. Celeste King captured the heartbreak and quiet resilience in Katherine’s character so well. And Tarfu’s faith in her devotion, even through years of pain and isolation? That’s the kind of emotionally rich payoff that readers crave. It almost feels like the “secret” in The Orc Warrior’s Secret Baby isn’t about him not knowing—it’s the rest of the world who either doubted or dismissed their bond, right?

There’s something particularly poignant about the reversal of expectations: instead of coming home to triumph or reunion, Tarfu walks straight into the painful ambiguity of a woman trying to honor both love and survival. I can’t help but feel for Tarfu who would definitely feel gut-punched by how alive Katherine looked after he’s been crawling through hell? And for Katherine, with how she reconciles the man she mourned with the hardened survivor who just returned. Tarfu is suffering from PTSD as well and has a lot of anger from the time he was away.

This audiobook was narrated from multiple perspectives, done in dual narration by Midnight Michael and Mia Madison. Mia has a good voice, it is a bit deeper than a lot of female narrators, so her voice for male characters wasn’t as bad as some, though she is a bit monotone at times and speaks slower than I like. I don’t think I ever heard Midnight Michael before, but I searched him in audible and it seems he does the narration for a lot of books with African-American characters, so I was hoping he had a nice deep voice which would fit the Orc character well and I was correct, his voice is super-deep and perfect for Tarfu.

I was triggered until I quit listening just no!

This book left me deeply unsettled. The male protagonist’s behavior isn’t just flawed—it’s a masterclass in toxic insecurity. After returning from three years of captivity, he immediately weaponizes baseless suspicions against his mate, refusing to communicate or acknowledge her years of sacrifice. Instead of gratitude for her raising their child alone, he twists every act of village kindness into evidence of infidelity, even doubting his son’s paternity despite celebrating the pregnancy himself.

The wife’s passivity is equally frustrating. Rather than confront his cruelty, she endlessly pines for him, reducing her character to a vessel for undeserved loyalty. The narrative frames emotional abuse as “angst,” romanticizing a dynamic where accountability is nonexistent. I couldn’t finish because it felt less like a story and more like an endorsement of harmful tropes.